Innovation Lead

Permanent employee,Full-time London, Manchester, Cheltenham

Innovation Lead Permanent employee,Full-time London, Manchester, Cheltenham 65,000 - 70,000 £ per year The Role's Purpose As an Innovation Lead in Clusters, this role will be pivotal in shaping, launching, and growing the UK's most dynamic innovation ecosystems. You will lead on the strategy, engagement, and delivery of innovation clusters that unlock regional potential and drive national competitiveness.

Working closely with startups, government bodies, academia, and industry leaders, you'll help turn vision into action-developing clusters that are inclusive, sustainable, and sector-leading. What You'll Do

• Lead the development and implementation of place-based innovation strategies
• Define and operationalise the strategic pillars of clusters: sector focus, anchor assets, infrastructure, talent, and investment
• Build and manage relationships with key stakeholders across public, private, and academic sectors
• Design and lead cluster activation plans including convening, governance structures, and programme delivery
• Develop thought leadership and insights to guide cluster growth and influence policy
• Oversee business support and challenge-led programmes that integrate startups and SMEs into clusters
• Provide strategic advisory support to clients on regional innovation and economic development
• Shape funding bids, investment cases, and delivery models for cluster development
• Represent Plexal as a senior partner in ecosystem-building conversations and consortiums
• Contribute to business development efforts, including public tenders and private sector proposals

Your Skills

• Strong programme design and delivery skills, especially in multi-partner or cross-sector contexts
• Excellent verbal and written communication, with the ability to produce persuasive strategies and reports
• Ability to translate policy goals into actionable plans and sustainable interventions
• Confidence working across multiple workstreams and managing project teams or collaborators

Your Experience

• Proven experience in innovation cluster or ecosystem development, or similar place-based innovation roles
• Understanding of the UK's innovation and economic development landscape, including government policy, funding, and delivery structures
• Experience engaging senior stakeholders and convening diverse partners toward a shared vision
• Familiarity with public funding, R&D consortia, or innovation finance mechanisms
• Higher Education degree, or relevant professional certifications, or equivalent knowledge gained via work experience

Desirable

• Knowledge of emerging technology markets and sector ecosystems (e.g. cyber, healthtech, space, defence, etc.)

Who You Are

• A strategic thinker and systems-builder who thrives in complexity
• Passionate about regional growth, innovation, and the role of place in economic transformation
• Entrepreneurial, curious, and comfortable operating in an agile, high-growth organisation
• Collaborative by nature, with a strong bias for action and partnership
• Proactive, organised, and capable of navigating evolving stakeholder landscapes
• Comfortable representing Plexal publicly and influencing senior decision-makers
• Energised by big challenges and motivated by long-term impact

Why us? Plexal's Values:
Mission: We inherit the mission of UK government and deliver it in an agile and creative fashion.
Collaboration: We believe in the power of working together.
Equality: We strengthen ourselves as a team by embracing the different.
Care: People are at the heart of what we do; we care about our customers, members and colleagues.

As a start-up, we thrive in a dynamic and fast-paced work environment dedicated to empowering innovators. We embrace individuals who leverage technology and creativity to tackle our greatest challenges head-on. We strongly advocate for maintaining a harmonious work-life balance, our goal is to ensure every member of our team can authentically be themselves and live their best lives. We firmly believe that innovation and creativity flourish when we cultivate a diverse workforce, comprising highly skilled individuals with a wide range of perspectives to contribute.

In return we will offer you:

• Salary: £65,000 - 70,000 depending on skills and experience
• Annual bonus scheme
• A generous pension scheme (with a company contribution of up to 10%)
• Private healthcare, life assurance and critical illness cover
• 25 days holiday plus bank holidays
• Volunteering day

Plexal is an equal opportunities employer and we actively encourage applicants from individuals from all backgrounds. We are a Disability Committed employer and are willing to make reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process. Apply for this job About us Plexal is the innovation company solving society's challenges through collaboration with government, startups and industry. The business is closing the gap between organisations - small and large, local and global, private and public - and working towards a common goal: using science and technology to deliver national security and prosperity. It was founded in 2017 as the innovation centre at Here East and is owned by clients of specialist real estate investment advisory company Delancey.

Providing bespoke consultancy services and state-of-the-art workspaces for over 1,000 innovators, Plexal sources the right partners from our ecosystem of 15,000 connections. It supports entrepreneurs, startups and scaleups building emerging technologies and operates across multiple sectors including cyber, healthcare, intelligence and defence, government, public safety, financial services and telecoms.

Expanding on its existing presence in London and Manchester, Plexal acquired a majority shareholding in Hub8 - the Cheltenham network of co-working spaces for cyber-tech, digital and creative startups and SMEs. This is part of an ongoing mission to build the UK's most connected cyber ecosystem, with GCHQ's more than 70-year heritage in Cheltenham.

Plexal delivers projects for key government departments and global tech companies including the National Cyber Security Centre, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Amazon Web Services and IBM. The NCSC For Startups alumni of over 60 companies has collectively raised over £430m and created over 700 jobs, while 72 cyber startups that have gone through Plexal's LORCA accelerators have collectively raised over £300m, generated more than £68m in revenue and hired over 800 people. Apply for this job